The Man Who Was Ray

Rated PG (M/F) for the very mildest of sexual suggestion.

A sad one. I mean it.

With thanks to T'Mar for her encouragement.

Constable Benton Fraser had many talents but the art of schmoozing was not among them. Undoubtedly this was one reason why he was still a Constable after the best part of twenty years in the RCMP. Making light, witty yet obsequious remarks to a tableful of superiors plus honoured guest required a level of shallowness he was unable to master. Consequently he was enduring one of the most unpleasant evenings of his life.

His one attempt at conversation had been a sentence beginning 'Among the Inuit...' Unfortunately those three words had reduced Dr Holly Bennett, the honoured guest, to such a paroxysm of giggles that she had choked on her bread roll and Ben's part in the conversation had been forgotten. He was extremely relieved that the dinner was now drawing to a close.

'Would you like a lift back to your hotel?' a Chief Inspector from Nova Scotia was asking Dr Bennett, the computer security consultant who had given the presentation on cryptography which Ben had been ordered to attend. He had been on desk duty since the last time he'd been shot, six months previously, and had been surprised to find that he was enjoying himself working on computer crime.

'No, thank you,' said Dr Bennett, who was small, dark and very attractive. 'Constable Fraser will take care of me,'

Fraser gasped with shock. He had not exchanged a single word with this woman. Oh, why did things like this always have to happen to him?

'Er, Ma'am, I don't have a car,' he managed to stammer.

'That's no problem, Constable,' she replied smoothly. 'I do. In fact, I drove up from New York.'

'That's a very long drive, Dr Bennett,' observed a sergeant from Toronto, who had been laying the flattery on with a trowel all night. 'You must be a very good driver.'

'I like driving,' Dr Bennett grinned, 'when I've got the right car and I should have the right car as I own a second-hand car business.' She turned to Fraser. 'Well, Constable, shall we be going?'

They said their goodbyes and got into the elevator. Fraser's nervousness increased as he realised that they were alone. He risked a glance and sure enough, she was watching him speculatively. He took a deep breath.

'Ma'am, I'm a married man...'

'I know,' she said. 'How are Meg and Robert? And the new baby's due when? A couple of weeks, isn't it?' Fraser gasped again. How could she know? But she was moving closer, standing only inches away from him as he felt his temperature soar.

'And you're a married woman.' He edged away but she pursued him, backing him into a corner of the elevator.

'No, I'm not,' she said.

'But you're wearing...'

'Yes,' she said, 'I'm wearing a ring, but I'm not married'. She edged even closer, he backed further away and then something seemed to crack and she stood back from him and let out a roar of laughter.

'It's true!' she said. 'You do, you turn exactly the colour of your uniform!' She was wiping tears of laughter from her eyes as they arrived at the parking garage.

'Relax, Constable, I'm not trying to seduce you,' she said as she led him from the elevator. 'I would, however, like to give you a ride...' The double entendre was lost on Fraser, as she had known it would be, but he was still occupied in trying to regain his equilibrium when she stopped and said 'This is it.'

He found himself staring at a green, 1971, Buick Riviera.

His eyes sought her face in the dim light of the parking garage. 'You're Ray's wife,' he said.

'I'm Nicky's widow.'

Ben had not sat in a Riviera for three years and he found himself running his hands along the textures of the fittings, dash, door and seat. Overwhelmed simultaneously by familiarity and loss, he was almost trying to recreate the happy times in the other Rivs and at first he could not speak, not even to give directions to the pleasant, green suburb of Ottawa where he lived. Holly Bennett, however, seemed to know the way and drove confidently in the right direction. She waited patiently for Ben to begin.

'How did you meet Ray, I mean Nicky?'

'As I said, I like cars. I wanted something with style, with class. Not your dull, everyday BMW or Mercedes, ya know? So I found this place that sold second-hand Buicks and when I went in, this bald, skinny, big-nosed guy tried to sell me this total rustmobile for about five times as much as it was worth. Then he had the nerve to ask me out!'

'And you went?'

'What can I say?' she grinned. 'It was love at first sight. He told me that his name was Dominic Delamitri, that he sold Buicks for a living,

that he'd pick me up at eight and that he might consider dropping a hundred dollars or so on the Buick. He took me to this little Italian restaurant and somewhere between the soup and the pasta he told me that he was in the Witness Protection Program, his name used to be Ray Vecchio and he'd been a cop who'd gone undercover to bust this big-shot gangster and been so successful they thought it was too dangerous for him to go home.'

Fraser blinked. 'He told you all this on the first date?'

'Yeah.' She sighed. 'Sometimes I wonder how we managed to keep him alive as long as we did. Of course, he swore to me that he'd never told anyone else and he'd only told me because he knew straightaway he could trust me.'

'Love at first sight for him, too,' Ben smiled.

'Must have been,' she said 'because we were married three months later. Nicky, I mean Ray, was uncertain. Not about our love for each other, I hope he never doubted that. But deep down inside he always thought they'd catch up to him some day. He was never an optimist.' Ben nodded at this, remembering Ray's fatalistic streak.

Holly continued. 'But *I* was sure - I thought I could save him, protect him, I don't know. But I couldn't. It was two days before our first wedding anniversary when it happened. He left the house to go to work and I heard a coupla noises. I'd never heard a gunshot before, even though I've lived all my life in New York, so I didn't realise what had happened at first. Then I heard the roar of the engine as a car pulled away and I knew. I ran outside but he was dead already. Two bullets in the head, execution style. I just sat and held him till the paramedics came.'

'I was so sorry that I couldn't attend the funeral,'

'Well, I guess that getting shot in the leg 24 hours beforehand is a pretty good excuse. The eulogy was beautiful - thank you for sending it, under such circumstances.'

'I knew Lt Welch would read it more convincingly than I ever could.'

'Oh, I don't know.' Silence fell between them again, not because there was nothing to say but because there was too much.

It was Holly who spoke. 'How's the leg?'

'Somewhat recovered, thank you kindly, but I will be confined to desk duties for another six months.'

'I have to ask this - did they shoot you in the other leg?'

For a moment he had no idea what she was talking about but then it came back to him in a rush and he smiled.

'I'm afraid they did.' And I wish that Ray had been there to stick a label on me, he thought.

Behind them a car horn sounded and they realised that the lights had changed twice since they'd stopped here.

'Would you like me to drive?' offered Fraser.

'No thanks,' Holly managed a watery smile. 'I heard a lot about your driving skills, in fact I heard a lot abut you, period! So much, in fact, that when the RCMP invited me up here to give a lecture I agreed on one condition - that they invite you along. I knew you were working in this area now.'

'You seem very well informed about me and my life. I mean,' Fraser stumbled, worried that he might sound discourteous, 'I mean, my life as it is now.'

'Yes, well, it's part of the job - knowing all the best sources of information.'

'Ah,' said Fraser, impressed.

'That's why I asked Frannie.'

'Oh,' he responded, nonplussed. Then a thought occurred to him. 'Oh, dear. I must tell you - it's not that that Francesca would lie, exactly - it's just, oh dear, it's just, well, Meg is a very nice person. Er, Francesca might have said...' he stumbled to a halt.

Holly laughed. 'Look, I know enough about Frannie to know that as far as you're concerned she ain't exactly an unbiased observer. My husband was full of funny stories about all his friends and family from the old life. He loved you all very much, ya know.'

'Do you think he regretted what he'd done?' Fraser had to ask.

'Every day of his life,' she responded simply. 'He missed everyone so much. The way he would talk about his Ma... On the other hand, if you'd asked him to do it again, knowing what he knew, I think he might have done it. I think he felt that putting that man in jail was a cause worth his sacrifice.'

'Frank Zuko,' Fraser prompted, automatically.

'I haven't forgotten his name,' Holly Bennett said calmly. 'I just won't say it.' Although Fraser could not see her face clearly he could see her anger and bitterness in her posture, her body language.

*I* regret what Ray did, Fraser thought. He should have been best man at my wedding, godfather to my child.

And then Fraser had an idea. 'Take the next right and then the second left,' he said 'and it's the third house along.' Holly stopped the car and turned to him.

'Please, please come in and meet my family,' he said.

'Benny, I can't' she said and the use of that name felt like a stab in the heart to him. 'The house is in darkness. Meg's gone to bed. She needs her rest and so do I - I've got a long drive in the morning. But

if you'd like to keep in touch' she said tentatively, 'I'll give you my address and phone number.'

He took a deep breath. 'The new baby will be a boy. Meg's had all the tests. We want to call him Ray and I'd like to ask you to be his godmother. I know Meg will agree.'

Holly stared at him through the darkness. 'But you hardly know me,' she whispered.

'Ray loved you. That's all I need to know.'

'I'd be more honoured than I could ever say.' She reached out blindly. He took her in his arms and they sat there for several moments.

Then Holly sniffed, found a tissue, said 'I have to go,' and drove away, promising to return in a couple of months.

And Ben Fraser walked through his garden and into his house to his wife, his son and the child who would be Ray.

Anne (atcostig@brad.ac.uk)

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